Having Good Credit

How to have a good Credit Rating

You are probably reading this page because you are looking to establish good credit. A good Credit Rating comes with many benefits such as saving money on interest, a lower insurance premium, and even saving you the embarrassment of having your job application denied due to poor credit. A good credit score tells people that you are a mature, responsible person

The truth is, with a little bit of discipline, it is easy to establish good credit. If you are short on time and money, then here are a few tips to build a good credit score.

 

• Clean up your Credit Reports.

We can help with this by challenging the accuracy of derogatory data in your reports.

• Pay your bills on time.

This is the second most obvious, but often is overlooked.  A single 30 days late payment can get you into the sub prime market for months.  Paying your bills on time makes the biggest impact.  There is nothing better for your credit than paying on time each and every month.  It will save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

• Increase Your Credit Limits.

Do you know that you can call your credit card companies and ask for a credit limit increase? The point is to have a higher limit and lower the average utilization.  The lower the credit card balance compared to the credit limit, the better for your credit score.  The Debt to Available Credit Ratio makes 30% of your credit score.  Your goal is to have an average utilization of 15% or less.

• Apply For New Credit carefully

Credit inquiries make up to 15% of your credit score.  Do not apply for new credit unless you need it or you have a clear strategy.  A credit card application frenzy is never a good idea.  Having several lines of credit available may cause lenders to turn you down.

• Use different types of credit

A couple credit cards with small balances, a car loan and a mortgage is ideal. Type of credit used makes up to 10% of your credit score.

 

• Be an authorized user

If you can get a relative with a long and good credit history to include you as an authorized user on one or more old accounts with high credit limits and small balances, it will make an extremely positive impact on your score.  Rumours spreading the news that authorized user accounts are no longer taken into the credit score are not true.  It is the best way to start building new credit.

A warning about buying "seasoned trade lines"

This is a scheme were you can pay a company to include you as authorized user on a credit card with a long history of good standing. Even though this is not illegal and worked well in the past, the people at Fair Isaac are determined to put and end to these practices.

Fair Isaac's Chief Operations Officer Mike Campbell says about these matters...

"It was very difficult to see at first if there was a way to compensate for that, while still maintaining the benefit to authorized users. We worked very hard with the credit bureaus and lenders to find how important it was to how many people, Fair Isaac maintained discussions with lenders during the process. Fortunately, we were able to come up with technology that makes it much harder to game the system."

Fair Isaac is unwilling to elaborate about this "technology" but so far it seems to be something as simple as a postal address and last name matching, it could be using too the dates of birth.

The new FICO software seems to look for some sort family or household relationship between the primary cardholder and the authorized user. On the absence of this relation, the software would not use the authorized account for score purposes even if the account is listed on the authorized user's report.
So far this is only a theory that we are trying to validate. BCR Consulting has not collected yet enough data to elaborate a significant working model, however, we plan to keep collecting information over the next few months and publish the final results on this page

Buying any of these trade lines now could be a complete waste of money.

Read the last news from Fair Isaac on this issue.

 

 

 

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